


the lights we chase, the nights we steal

by cleardishwashers



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018), Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, sibling is such a weird word wtf, this is just the ocean sibs judging each other, would've been a 5+1 but alas i am too tired to think of the 5th thing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29960676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleardishwashers/pseuds/cleardishwashers
Summary: four times the ocean siblings got bailed out by a partner and one time they bailed each other out
Relationships: Claude Becker/Debbie Ocean, Danny Ocean & Debbie Ocean, Danny Ocean/Rusty Ryan, Danny Ocean/Tess Ocean, Lou Miller/Debbie Ocean
Comments: 14
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunshowerst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshowerst/gifts), [Serendipity8832](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serendipity8832/gifts), [suibian_distance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suibian_distance/gifts).



> ok so this one is for so many people wtf. sean for being a g. fif for also being a g for nearly two years!!!! ao3 user sunshowerst for literally sustaining me w their fics wtf. serendipity8832 for absolutely SLAYING me w that fic (forever thinking abt 90s kids ryocean listening to neon trees now thank u for that). oceans server for being magnificent in general. anyways hope u like!  
> i havent fully written this yet so updates might take a while lol. enjoy!

Rusty would’ve come to bail them out the first time, but when Debbie asks her shitheel of a brother about it he just crosses his arms and scrubs a hand over his face and says, in that monotone of his, “Rusty’s not here.”

And for a second Debbie thinks the worst, because what the hell else would separate DannyandRusty other than the shining silver elegance of a gun, but Danny catches her horrified look (hey, Rusty’s practically her brother-in-law, albeit a weird one who sends her foreign candies made with ant legs) and his eyes go wide, backpedaling. “No, no, not like— I mean Belize not-here. Not…” He trails off. Too terrible to think about, even when the only other choice is staring at the molding walls of the drunk tank they’ve been tossed in.

Well, there’s never really two choices— any Ocean worth their salt (ha) knows that. But to Danny, in this moment, there seems to be, ‘cause his face goes blank and he peers very intently at the peeling paint across from him for a moment. Then he shakes his head and the grey cloud of  _ what-if _ shifts away, far enough that Debbie can go back to worrying about her clothes touching any surfaces rather than worrying if her brother’s going to have a mental breakdown at the mere thought of his partner dying. (She wouldn’t blame him if it were the straw that broke the camel’s back— the past three days have been a sleep-deprived hell, even by their standards, and the cherry on top was getting arrested. For a drunk and disorderly— of which they were only one— which is better than the possible (failed) larceny charge, but if they’d been properly jailed maybe then Debbie would’ve had a minute away from Danny and his stupid ideas.)

“No wonder you got us thrown in jail,” Debbie says, trying to find a patch of wall that’s clean enough to lean on. (She doesn’t trust the bolted-down benches as far as she can throw them; the amount of dried piss on them is enough to permeate the air even now, when the cell is otherwise empty.) “For, what— the fifth time?”

“Only one of ‘em’s ever been for anything serious,” Danny replies. “And it’s not like I  _ can’t _ pull a job without Rusty.”

“Sure,” Debbie says, humoring him. She starts pacing, crossing the cell in five strides and about-facing with a sixth. Goddamn jewelry stores and their goddamn blast-proof safes.

“I’m serious.”

“So’m I.”

“You’re mocking me. I can feel it.”

“No, I’m  _ mad _ at you.”

“Hey, you chose to take this job.”

She stops abruptly, directly in front of where he’s sitting (and for a guy wearing Armani, he sure as fuck doesn’t seem to care about what he’s sitting on). “You said easy.”

“Nothing in this life is easy.”

She ignores the underlying resurgence-of-teenage-angst-ness inherent to his sentence (which automatically makes her the greatest sister ever) and exclaims, “Everything is! We’re Oceans!”

“And we’ll be out of here in an hour! No harm, no foul, right?”

Debbie narrows her eyes at him. “We’re in fucking Newfoundland, Daniel. Who the hell’s close enough to get here and bail us out?”

He doesn't even have the decency to pause. “I have a girlfriend,” Danny says, with the same unflappable confidence he’d had when he called her and said  _ I know a jewelry store we can hit. _ “She’s doing a speech at The Rooms. She’s a curator.”

“You have a girlfriend,” Debbie says, in the flattest tone she can muster. “And she’s doing a speech at The Rooms. Because she’s a curator.”

“That’s what I said.”

“How’d you meet her?  _ On the job?” _ Debbie snarks. Then she catches sight of his expression. “Oh my God, you met her on the job.” He shrugs. “Does  _ she _ know you met her on the job?”

“No, and it’s gonna stay that way.”

Debbie wants to bash her head against the bars of the cell. “Daniel.”

“Yes, dear sister?”

There’s a million things she wants to say to him in that moment:  _ don’t fuck things up with Rusty like how I keep fucking up with Lou, don’t go after her because you’ve got an allergy to boredom, don’t go after her because you— God forbid— want a normal life (you don’t), _ and most of all _ don’t pretend like you can con yourself out of the game— _ but he’s the reason she’s sitting in a jail cell in fucking Canada at the moment, so she just asks, “Why do you like her?”

His face lights up at the question. Well, at least she knows he actually loves this girlfriend of his. “Debs, she’s great. She’s a goddamn genius, is what she is, at all this art history shit— you know me, I’m not the type to do more than appreciate the big picture, that was always Rusty’s thing. But she’s smart, and she’s got this really snarky sense of humor— the one-liners alone could just bowl you over. She’s great. You’ll love her.”

Debbie refrains from saying  _ that sounds like Rusty, _ refrains from thinking  _ that sounds like Lou. _ “And how long have you been dating her without telling me?”

“Uh… two years.”

That’s when it clicks— Rusty’s trip to Belize, the jewelry store, Danny’s out-of-the-blue call. They haven’t called each other in a year, haven’t seen each other in three— hell, Debbie thought he was reaching out because someone had died. “So this isn’t a ‘six-year-anniversary-of-Dad-having-a-stroke thing’ after all,” Debbie says. She hadn’t bought it when he’d said it, since he’d always said that he wished the stroke had finished dear old Dad off once and for all, but hey. It was supposed to be easy money, and she didn’t feel the need to pry. “This was a—”

“Yep.”

“And why did we need to go to—”

“We met here, actually. She was working at—”

“The Rooms,” she finishes. “Well, that’s sweet and all, but you didn’t actually get a ring, so—”

He purses his lips, ever so slightly.

_ “How?” _

“I actually bought the ring from a shop across town. This was to fund the honeymoon.”

Debbie inhales deeply, turns away, and exhales. Then she starts pacing again. “What the hell does she even think you  _ do?” _

“Investment banker,” Danny replies, the title rolling off his tongue.

“Great. Does she even know I exist?”

“She— oh, speak of the devil! Hey, Tess!” Danny exclaims, rising from his seat. Debbie pivots to face the hall, and sees a leggy redhead approaching, a cop next to her. She’s pretty, definitely Danny’s type— eyes just warm enough to be polite, delicate features sharp enough to cut— and Debbie can see the appeal. But she walks down the hall in clack-clacking stilettos, and her nails are long and painted beige-pink, and Debbie knows her brother. Always wants what he can’t have.

“Danny, I gotta say, I was  _ not _ expecting this,” Tess says, stopping in front of the cell. Her hands are slender, pale, soft.  _ No calluses. _ “And you must be… Debbie?” she adds, turning to Debbie with a polite smile gracing her face.

“Lovely to meet you,” Debbie says. “Sorry it had to be through bars.”

“Well, it runs in the family,” Danny jokes, and Debbie almost lets her eyebrow raise in surprise. He’s told her about the Oceans’ history, then, told her enough to incriminate. “It’s not much of a story, sweetheart, just us defying the open container laws. Bonehead move, huh?”

Tess relaxes a fragment, the points of her tan coat’s shoulders deflating. “Well, I’m glad I had my phone on me. Let’s get you two out of here.”

Danny was right. She  _ is _ smart, and funny, and overall great. So when he asks Debbie what she thinks, she tells him that. “I like her,” she says— and then (because she knows that all she’ll see of him in the next few years’ll be Christmas cards whether she tells him what she really thinks or not) she adds, “I just… don’t like her for you.”

His face falls imperceptibly. “It’ll work itself out,” he says, with the confidence gained from working with a partner for the past decade or so.

“You don’t have someone watching your back in this,” Debbie warns. “It might not.”

“It will.” He doesn’t say it with the usual laid-back certainty. He says it like an atheist says a prayer.

But she’s not going to push it. So she lets sleeping dogs lie, and hopes they don’t come back to bite her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> danny meets claude and its hate at first sight <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was very fun to write because to any outsider its like Oh These Two Siblings Are Having A Conversation About Their Significant Others. and to danny, Mr Professional MicroExpression-Reading Grifter himself, he and debbie are like. shrieking at each other. anyways i wish debbie really had shivved claude

Danny is not having a very good day. First off, it’s the three-month anniversary of his second divorce. Second, his goddamn partner is off in Belize again, this time with Isabel. Third, he’s in jail. And Debbie won’t stop looking at him like it’s his fault.

Well, it’s partially his fault. But how was he to know that she was about to hit Trent Leone's house? At least they’ve already been questioned (and they might not have worked together in a decade, but they still know their alibis by heart). Now they just have to wait for Debbie’s “contact” (Lou, probably) to bail them out.

_ Christ, _ this is gonna feel like forever.

“Every time,” Debbie scoffs, like she can tell what he’s thinking, and he’s pretty sure she’s gonna follow it up with something like  _ every time you’re on the East Coast something goes wrong, _ but she doesn’t. Instead, she crosses her arms and grinds the heel of her boot into the concrete and says, “Every time he’s gone you do something stupid.”

Well, there’s no mistaking who the  _ he _ in question is. Danny wants to object— he  _ can _ pull off a job when Rusty’s not there with him, he’s been doing it for nearly three decades, thank you very much— but he knows Debbie’ll say something about it being different when Rusty’s  _ left _ him, even temporarily, and then they’ll just get into some circuitous argument where she tries to make him see reason and he tries to make her see sense. So he skips the part where he defends himself, and goes straight to needling her: “I could say the same for you.”

“Yes, because I’m so immeasurably attached to Rusty. I’m sure that’s why he thinks my birthday is May 20th.”

“How do you know what he— y’know what? It doesn’t matter, ‘cause that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Well, then, you’re gonna have to spell it out,” Debbie says obstinately, slowly walking around the perimeter of the holding cell. It’s empty— surprising, given that it’s New York City— and much more spacious than the last cell he shared with her, which means she can make him slightly less dizzy with her inevitable pacing. She never says it (not anymore, at least, because his response is always the same), but he knows that she’s judging him for sitting on the benches.  _ Dry cleaning exists, dear sister, _ he thinks, and props his head on one arm to fix her with a judgemental look.

But they’re both stubborn bastards, and Debbie continues to pace without looking at him (which has the dual effect of nullifying his judgemental look and making him feel like she's a predator stalking her prey). “Debs, I’m talking about Lou. L-o-u. Do you need me to spell the whole sentence, or—”

She comes to a halt and shoots a low-intensity glare at him. “That won’t be necessary, thank you.”

“Just checking.”

“And by the way, I don’t like taking advice from hypocrites.”

“That eliminates everyone but the Dalai Lama. Where  _ is _ Lou, anyway? I didn’t get the chance to say hi to her before—” he gestures at the fluorescent-lit grey walls and grime-ridden steel bars— “well, this.”

Debbie shifts her weight from her front leg to her back, and there’s an inch of hesitation in her voice before she says “None of your business.”

His eyebrows go up, up, up, and then he grins, because he never said he wasn’t an asshole. “What was that thing about not taking advice from hypocrites, Debs?”

“Shut it.”

“Because if you’re giving  _ me _ advice on not doing stupid things while my partner is away, and you aren’t a hypocrite—”

“Daniel, shut your mouth.”

“—then that would mean that  _ you _ aren’t doing stupid things while  _ your _ partner is away.”

“It doesn’t count, because it would’ve worked, if  _ someone—” _

“Hey, I’m not denying that I might’ve messed up your plans, but… tell me, how were you gonna deal with the guard dogs?”

Debbie’s jaw tightens, almost imperceptibly. “I would’ve handled it. You never gave me the chance.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious.”

“So’m I.”

They glare at each other for a moment, and Danny uses the time to survey his sister, take in the strands of grey at her temples, the concealer-covered shadows under her eyes, the cracks in her leather jacket— she never really wears leather jackets, and never wears them enough for them to age, which means it’s not hers. “Where’s Lou?”

Debbie sighs, stops gripping her crossed arms with that practiced indifference. “Bike trip.”

“And you’re pulling jobs without her… why?”

“None of your business,” she repeats.

Now it’s his turn to sigh, because he’s sure he’s never this hostile to her when she’s in a prying mood.  _ God, I wish Rusty was here to deal with this, _ he thinks, and then he’s immediately annoyed— firstly, because Rusty leaving was what started this in the first place, second, because Rusty really would know what to say but he’s not here to say it, and third, because Danny’s not supposed to be fucking thinking about Rusty. He shakes his head, as if that’ll clear the aggravation away, and rubs at his temples. “Look, we might be in here for a while, so can we stow the aggression? Don’t exactly feel like a repeat of Reno.”

Debbie actually cracks a smile at that, and Danny smiles back, even though he was the one who’d lost his shoes to the police dogs. “Fine. Sorry,” she says. “It’s just… been a long day. Long few months.”

“She’s been gone that long?”

His sister fixes him with a scrutinizing stare (and it’s the same one he uses, which is disconcerting to say the least) probably deciding whether or not he’s worth telling. “Yeah,” she says eventually. “She doesn’t like the guy I’ve been seeing.”

That’s a curveball— Debbie’s never really wanted to settle down (or at least settle down with anyone other than Lou, because Danny knows that both of them are the right brand of repressed that their preferred mode of shacking up would be to make a life together without actually saying it), and she’s never kept up a romantic relationship for more than a month (or at least a  _ serious _ romantic relationship,  serious enough to drive her partner away). Danny always thought it was a smart policy, whether or not Debbie was consciously enacting it. His surprise (which he’s probably not entitled to, but what else are older brothers for) must show on his face, because she rolls her eyes. “I’m not some old maid, Danny.”

“Not saying you are,” Danny says. “But what happened to the whole ‘one month tops’ thing?”

“It’s not much more than a fling,” Debbie huffs. “Lou just doesn’t like him ‘cause he’s pulling a better job than her.”

_ A conman, _ _huh?_ he thinks. _Guess it really does run in the blood._

There’s obviously an exposed nerve there, if she’s painting  _ Lou _ as unreasonable. “So Lou fucked off because of professional jealousy.” Even to him, it doesn’t sound true.

“Yep. Where’s Rusty?” Debbie asks.

The change of topic is so firm and obvious that he feels compelled to switch tracks, even if it’s probably gonna fuck him over. “Belize,” he replies, suddenly feeling the urge to send the fingers of his left hand tap-tap-tapping against his pant leg. “Off on vacation with Isabel.”

This time it’s her who raises her eyebrows at him. No judgement (well, a little judgement, but that’s par for the course with them), just surprise. “He’s still with Isabel?”

“Yeah.”

“Coming up on… what, seven, eight years?”

“They’re on and off.”

“Ah.”

It’s his turn to bristle slightly, sitting up straight and looking over at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She widens her eyes— the very picture of innocence— frowns, and shrugs. “Just means ‘ah.’”

He lets himself slump a little; this is why they don’t stay on the same coast. “When the hell’s your contact getting here, anyway?”

The universe has a goddamn great sense of timing, apparently, because the next thing he hears is a British voice in his periphery saying, “That’d be me.”

Danny looks over at the speaker— a tall, sharply-dressed man with far too much gel in his hair. Danny looks back at his sister. “This is the guy?”

“Yep,” Debbie says, her eyes a mask, her chin jutting out by just a millimeter. “Danny, meet Claude. Claude, this is my brother, Danny.”

“Pleased to meet you,” says Claude, baring his teeth in what’s probably meant to be a roguish grin. “Even if it had to be ‘cause of suspected larceny.” He laughs at his own joke, and Danny feels his stomach curdle.

He gets up with a matching chuckle, feeling the events of the past twelve hours in the creak of his knees, and extends his hand to Claude through the bars. Claude’s watch is a Rolex— a real Rolex— worn loosely enough to easily pocket, but Danny keeps his fingers south of Claude’s cold wrist. Call it a favor to Debbie, who apparently finds no issue in dating a guy with the kind of dead eyes that Claude has. “Great to meet you, too,” Danny says. He doesn’t like the man one bit.

His opinion is reinforced by the next twenty minutes he spends with Claude (who drives a car, which he gets valet parking for, in  _ New York) _ and he’s inordinately glad that Debbie shrugs off her boyfriend’s attempts to do a group lunch, instead proposing a Dunkin Donuts run. “Oh, I’d love to spend more time getting to know you, Claude,” Danny says, “but I really gotta get going, so I’ll just get my coffee and then catch a train.”

“No worries, mate,” Claude says, with a snakelike grin. “I’ve got to get to work, actually, so I’ll leave you two to catch up. Really lovely to meet you.” He gets into his Benz, and he pulls out of the parking lot.  _ God, _ he gets on Danny’s nerves.

“Does he work on Wall Street or something?” Danny asks, as he and Debbie walk towards the coffeeshop.

“He’s an artist, actually,” Debbie replies. “Yes, he wears a suit to work every day, and no, I don’t know why.” She pulls open the door and shoulders past him to get in line.

There’s a pointed lack of space there for him to comment, but he manages. “Y’know when I asked you what you thought of Tess, and you said that you liked her, but you didn’t like her for me?”

“I was right, wasn’t I?” she says, before turning to the barista and ordering an iced coffee.

“Medium caramel latte, hot,” he tells the barista. Debbie pulls out her wallet (well, he doubts that it’s  _ her _ wallet, but that’s neither here nor there), since Danny paid for the bagels back in St. Paul, and once she’s handed over a crumpled ten, Danny looks at his sister and says, “I don’t like him, full stop.”

Not the right choice, even if it was the right thing to do, because Debbie’s not trying to con herself into loving her boyfriend.

Her face hardens. “Keep the change,” she tells the barista. To Danny, she says, “Enjoy your coffee,” and then she walks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this whole fic came from the thought of the "i like her but not for you"/"i don't like him" juxtaposition lmao but as anyone whos ever met me knows i am a SLUT for juxtaposition. (spoiler alert its bc my brain is not large enough to comprehend more than 2 things at once.) anyway hope u enjoyed this chapter! feel free to leave kudos/comments :)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! drop me a line on tumblr (@hawkswithvideocameras) if u wanna scream with me abt these gayasses, and feel free to leave a comment/kudos! have a great day :)


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